Savvy Hairstylist Turns Mugshot Into Marketing Opportunity

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And when the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Dept. gives you a mugshot, use it for marketing.

That’s the savvy business move made by Shia Yearwood, a hairstylist in Charlotte, North Carolina, after she was arrested on a misdemeanor charge for violating a domestic protective order last Wednesday.

She told BET that “I thought my braids looked amazing — they were literally done two hours prior to the mugshot.”

Yearwood has been braiding hair since she was a youngster, and credits her grandmother and godmother for teaching her how to do it, even though she wasn’t a big fan at first.

“To be honest, I wasn’t quite interested in braiding because I use to do micros, and they took way too long to do,” she told BET. “Then I learned to do the Poetic Justice braids when I was experiencing hair loss after my daughter was born. I got a good reaction from family and friends. Because I was a young mom with no money for daycare, I did hair to just make a little money to get her [the] essentials.”

Yearwood views her reaction to the arrest as a positive.

“I overcame it,” she told Inside Edition. “I am not bad. I am not sad. I wasn’t hurt. Someone tried to break me and it just worked out in my benefit.”